Sustainable Utilization

Within the context of international trade, all species of living crocodilians are listed on the Appendices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) - on either Appendix I or Appendix II:

Appendix I: “shall include all species threatened with extinction which are or may be affected by trade. Trade in specimens of these species must be subject to particularly strict regulation in order not to endanger further their survival and must only be authorized in exceptional circumstances.”

Appendix II: “shall include […] all species which although not necessarily now threatened with extinction may become so, unless trade in specimens of such species is subject to strict regulation in order to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival”.

Current CITES Listings of Crocodilian Species

Species

Common Name

Listing

Alligator mississippiensis

American Alligator

II

Alligator sinensis

Chinese Alligator

I

Caiman crocodilus

Spectacled Caiman

I & II

C. c. apaporiensis

Rio Apaporis Caiman

I

C. c. crocodilus

Spectacled Caiman

II

C. c. fuscus

Brown Caiman

II

Caiman latirostris

Broad-nosed Caiman

I & II

Caiman yacare

Yacare Caiman

II

Crocodylus acutus

American Crocodile

I & II

Crocodylus cataphractus

African Slender-snouted Crocodile

I

Crocodylus intermedius

Orinoco Crocodile

I

Crocodylus johnstoni

Australian Freshwater Crocodile

II

Crocodylus mindorensis

Philippine Crocodile

I

Crocodylus moreletii

Morelet’s Crocodile

I & II

Crocodylus niloticus

Nile Crocodile

I & II

Crocodylus novaeguineae

New Guinea Crocodile

II

Crocodylus palustris

Mugger Crocodile

I

Crocodylus porosus

Saltwater Crocodile

I & II

Crocodylus rhombifer

Cuban Crocodile

I

Crocodylus siamensis

Siamese Crocodile

I

Gavialis gangeticus

Gharial

I

Melanosuchus niger

Black Caiman

I & II

Osteolaemus tetraspis

Dwarf Crocodile

I

Paleosuchus palpebrosus

Cuvier's Dwarf Caiman

II

Paleosuchus trigonatus

Schneider's Smooth-fronted Caiman

II

Tomistoma schlegelii

Tomistoma

I

Some crocodilian species are abundant in the wild (eg Caiman crocodilus, Crocodylus niloticus), in parts or the whole of their former range, whereas others are truly endangered (eg Alligator sinensis, Crocodylus mindorensis, Gavialis gangeticus). Together with efforts to improve the status of endangered species of wild crocodilians around the world over the last 30 years have been efforts to re-establish international trade on a legal and sustainable basis.

Sustainable use can be defined as: “use of wildlife associated with a process aimed at ensuring the use can continue indefinitely and that its impacts are maintained within prescribed limits.” In practical terms this usually means “use associated with a management program that aims to sustain the harvest program” indefinitely and ensure “adverse impacts are avoided or minimized.”

There are many good examples of conservation benefits being linked directly to trade, although some problems remain with some species in certain countries. The economic importance of crocodilians has often led directly to stronger institutional arrangements for their conservation and ongoing management. Despite predictions that legal trade would encourage illegal trade, an outstanding result of market-driven conservation of crocodilians is that illegal trade has all but been eradicated in the face of well-regulated legal trade.

The type of commercial use of crocodilians varies between species and countries, and largely reflects the status of populations, their abundance, national priorities with regard to uses considered acceptable and well-established concepts about the risks of harvesting different life stages. Within the context of CITES, consumptive use of crocodilians fits into three broad categories:

Captive Breeding (CB), production of eggs from captive adults;

Ranching (R), collection of eggs, hatchlings or juveniles from the wild, that are raised in captivity; and,

Suggested reading:

Hutton, J., Ross, P. and Webb, G. (2002). A review: Using the market to create incentives for the sustainable use of crocodilians. Pp. 382-399 in Crocodiles. Proceedings of the 16th Working Meeting of the IUCN-SSC Crocodile Specialist Group. IUCN: Gland, Switzerland.

MacGregor, J. (2006). The Call of the Wild: Captive Crocodilian Production and the Shaping of Conservation Incentives. TRAFFIC International: Cambridge, UK.